Sunday, September 23, 2012

Kuala Lumpur | Malaysia

Anyway, since I am going to be here for the next two years, I have taken some time to try to make my apartment feel like home. Undertaking this task has posed a challenge in some ways because not everything I've been looking for can necessarily be found in Indonesia. In light of this discovery over a period of weeks, I decided to take a weekend getaway to Malaysia for...IKEA! My friend Dani was able to come along. I'm not gonna lie, I spent almost 3 hours inside. It was just a little taste of home.


After Ikea we perused Borders for a bit, because it still exists over here, then headed to the Batu Caves to do a little sight seeing. I've already posted about this particular landmark but it is one of my favorites so far in Southeast Asia so here's another look:

We stayed the night at a hostel in Chinatown. Although I walked through Chinatown during my layover in May, I saw that it is a completely different place in the dark!

This was my first experience staying in a hostel. I was pleasantly suprised that I was only vaguely reminded of my days in a dorm. We had a lovely view eating breakfast on the rooftop overlooking a hindu temple and the city!

You might have noticed that it's been awhile since I've posted and there is a tragic reason for that. All of my pictures, movies, and shows are stored on an external hard drive. A few weeks ago, while I was watching a movie, it suddenly stopped and began to make a strange rattling noise. I took the hard drive into the IT guys at school who informed me that the entire thing had been wiped clean. I'm still not sure exactly how it happened but that means that all of my pictures from the last few years are [temporarily] gone. They have sent it off so hopefully at least some of the data can be recovered! 

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Gili Trawangan | Indonesia

Paradise. You've seen it in the movies, read about it in books. Palm trees, white sand beaches, water in varying shades of turquoise. That, my friends, is where I blissfully passed the a week on holiday.
The Gili islands are located off the coast of Lombok, which is off the coast of Bali, which is off the coast of Java. We've been hanging out on Gili Trawangan, the furthest island. Just to give you an idea of size, you can walk around the entire island in less than two hours. Cars and motorbikes aren't allowed here and the only modes of transportation are bicycles and horse carriages.


Aside from aesthetic beauty, this place is also known throughout Indonesia for scuba diving. We stayed at a place called Blue Marlin Dive and subsequently completed our open water dive certification during our stay. That means that I can safely dive down to 18m!

My words cannot do the beauty of this place justice so here are some of my favorite pictures for your viewing pleasure: